Leshawn Williams, 17, lost his leg after a freak football accident left him unable to feel his toes and doctors were unable to re-establish circulation. Fox 13 Tampa Screenshot

On Friday Leshawn Williams, a defensive lineman for Northeast High School in Florida, took a nasty spill, and at first everyone believed it affected his knee. He would most likely miss the rest of the season.

The game was delayed for almost 30 minutes as team medics tried to figure out if there was just knee damage or ligament damage. The 17-year-old senior was taken from the field to an area hospital.

"They put him on the phone with me and he told me he was in pain," Leshawn's mother, Bonita Copeland, 45, who was not at the game, told the Tampa Bay Times.

According to the Times, doctors spent "the weekend trying to re-establish circulation in Williams' lower leg," but the boy reportedly couldn't move his toes. On Sunday doctors decided to amputate a portion of Leshawn's leg just above the knee.

"I don't think he's grasped it all yet," Copeland said. "He's still recovering. We're all still trying to understand it."

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According to the Times, Northeast coaches and players were somber at the first practice without Leshawn. They signed a banner that read, ''Get Well Soon Leshawn."

"This was just freakish, awful luck," first-year head coach Jeremy Frioud said to the team, the Tampa Bay Times reports. "But we're going to be there as a team to help. … The first thing [Williams] texted to us after this happened was 'Play hard.' That's exactly what we're going to do."